I’m sitting in the chair, looking out across the hospital grounds, when the nurse comes in with the telephone in her hand.
‘Detective Sergeant Adams wants to speak to you,’ she says. ‘Apparently, it’s important.’
I take the phone from her and wait until she has left the room. ‘Seb?’
‘Hey, hiya,’ he says. His voice is a balm to soothe the pain in my heart. ‘I had to pretend I was phoning on official police business, otherwise they wouldn’t put me through. Are you OK?’
‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear your voice,’ I say, my own voice cracking with emotion. ‘It’s been such a terrible weekend. Did they tell you what happened?’
‘Yep, I got a call from your mum. The police contacted her, but she’s away on holiday and it’s going to take her a while to get home. She phoned and asked me to come up. If I’d known, I would have been there sooner. I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry. You weren’t to know. Is my mum all right?’
‘Yeah, she’s worried, obviously, and frantic that she has to wait for the next available flight.’
‘Did they tell you about Joanne?’ I can feel my bottom lip begin to tremble.
‘Well, not exactly. They wouldn’t say much to me, but I’ve made a few discreet enquiries … I know what’s happened.’
I note the hesitation. ‘What have you heard?’
‘That Joanne is dead. Her husband, Tris, is it …?’
‘Yeah. Tris.’
‘Tris and Zoe turned up at Gormston police station and reported Joanne’s death, along with Andrea being missing.’
‘And me? What did they say about me?’ Another hesitation, reminiscent of the days of satellite delays on long-distance calls, sets the alarm bells ringing. ‘Seb, you must tell me. What did they say about me?’
‘Look, Carys, don’t be alarmed, it’s all talk right now. The police will need to ask you some questions.’
‘Seb, please. You’re stalling. Tell me what you know.’
‘OK … Tris and Zoe have been interviewed separately, which is standard procedure, but they’re both saying the same thing.’
I bite back my frustration at Seb’s inability to tell me straight and after yet another pause, he continues. ‘They say you were the last one to see Joanne alive, and you argued with her. Tris is saying you two had an ongoing disagreement. They said you took off, taking Alfie with you. Is that true?’
My turn to hesitate. ‘Sort of. Well, it is the truth, but it’s not how it sounds.’
‘You need to be more convincing than that when the local police show up there to interview you,’ says Seb.
‘What do you mean?’
‘At the moment, it’s not looking great for you.’
‘But I didn’t do anything!’ The volume of my own voice surprises me. I check myself. ‘I didn’t kill Joanne. It was Tris. Or at least, I think it was. He’s been having an affair with Zoe, for goodness’ sake. He’s got money problems. He’d be the one to benefit from her death.’
‘Hey, hey, Carys, calm down. Listen, I’ll try to get there before the police interview you, but if I can’t, you must stay calm when you speak to them. Don’t get yourself all agitated, it won’t do you any favours.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s been such an awful weekend.’ Before I can say anything else, the nurse returns. She makes an apologetic face and nods towards the phone. ‘I’ve got to go now. The nurse needs her phone. Thank you for calling.’
‘All right, remember what I said. Stay calm, tell the truth and everything will be all right. I promise. I love you, Carys.’
I can’t answer. Even if the nurse wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be able to say anything. Emotion overwhelms me and I rest my forehead in my hand, willing Seb a speedy journey. I need him right now.
Despite leaving me in bits, I’m grateful for Seb’s call. I’m heartened that he is at this moment on his way to me and, although I’m not looking forward to the local police turning up and questioning me, at least now I am prepared. I try to decide what sort of demeanour to adopt but after considering and dismissing several options, I come to the conclusion it is probably best to be myself. The police will no doubt see through any attempt to portray myself in a different light, and it will only serve to convince them I’ve got something to hide.
I don’t have to wait long before I receive my official visit. I’m not sure whether this is a good omen or not.
‘Hello, Mrs Montgomery?’
I turn in my chair to face a man I estimate to be in his mid-forties. ‘Yes. Hello,’ I say, taking in the dark hair, flecked with white at the sides, and friendly eyes which crinkle at the corners when he smiles.
‘Hi, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Matt Chilton.’ He holds out his police warrant card. I nod and he returns it to the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘Can I call you Carys?’
‘Yes, sure.’
‘How are you feeling?’ he asks.
‘OK. Considering.’ I adjust the blanket that covers my knees, more for something to do than for modesty’s sake.
‘May I?’ Chilton indicates the plastic chair in the corner of the room. I nod and he picks it up with one hand, brings it over and places it opposite me. He sits down, gives me another smile and then begins: ‘The nurse says you’ve had stitches.’
My fingertips automatically go to the dressing on the side of my head. I touch the self-adhesive square lightly. ‘Three stitches and a drop of glue,’ I say. ‘Not to mention this rather fetching hairstyle.’
‘You were very lucky, by all accounts,’ says Chilton.
‘Was I?’ I drop my gaze to my hands, which nervously tease the ribbon-edged blanket as I try to push away the still-frames in my mind of what happened on the river.
‘Carys.’ The detective’s voice cuts through my thoughts. ‘Yesterday afternoon, Tris Aldridge and Zoe Coleman walked into Gormston police station and reported the death of Joanne Aldridge. Mr Aldridge was very distressed, as you can imagine. They both were. They also reported Andrea Jarvis as missing, along with yourself and your son, Alfie Montgomery. I’m here to try to get to the bottom of what happened.’
‘Yes. I realise that.’ His patronising tone irks me. ‘What did Tris and Zoe say?’
‘That’s not something I can discuss right now. What I want to do is to get your version of events.’
‘Have you arrested Tris?’
‘We are making enquiries. No one has been arrested, yet.’ His voice is firm and his gaze steady. ‘So, Carys, I need to ask you a few questions.’
‘OK.’
‘Can you run through the events of the weekend, just so I have them from your point of view.’
I take a deep breath. I remember Seb’s words from earlier: stay calm and tell the police exactly what happened.
‘I was invited to come away for the weekend by my friend, Joanne Aldridge. We arrived at the croft Friday lunchtime. Everyone was in good spirits. We had lunch and then went for a walk. In the evening we sat around chatting. Saturday morning, we went on a longer walk to Archer’s Falls.’
‘And how was the general mood of the party?’
‘Fine. We were having a good time.’ It’s a rather audacious lie, but I haven’t got the energy to go into the undercurrents of the weekend. I’m not sure how much Chilton’s been told and I decide to keep what I say to the bare minimum. ‘Myself, Andrea and Zoe then returned to the croft by kayak.’
‘Not Joanne?’
‘No. She returned to the croft on foot, as far as I know.’
‘Why was that?’
‘She left us to abseil down to the riverbank. She said it was a bit of fun. A challenge, I suppose, to see if we could get back on our own.’
‘This was an outdoor-adventure-type weekend, is that right?’
‘I guess so. As I said, Joanne planned it all. It was a surprise for us.’
‘OK. So, what happened when you returned to the croft?’
‘We had tea. Joanne and I had a chat in the garden. I went indoors and later Zoe went out looking for Joanne. She found her … dead.’
‘If we can go back a step: what did you and Joanne talk about when you were outside?’
‘Our children.’
‘Zoe Coleman says she heard the two of you arguing. What do you say to that?’
I can feel the heat rise up my neck and am sure my cheeks are on the verge of glowing red. ‘It was nothing – a difference of opinion about my son, Alfie.’ I take a second to swallow the lump of guilt that rises in my throat. ‘I walked off in the end.’
I steal a look at the DCI as he takes a moment to contemplate my statement so far. He offers no comment but nods as if he has drawn some conclusion. ‘When you and Andrea Jarvis left the croft to get help, Mrs Jarvis says you got into an argument with her. Is that right?’
‘Er … yes. It wasn’t a big argument though.’ I’m thrown by the sudden change in direction.
‘How would you describe it? Petty?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And what did you and Mrs Jarvis argue about?’
‘Is this necessary? How is that relevant?’ The words burst out before I have time to check them. ‘Sorry. I’m finding this all rather difficult.’
‘Yes, I can imagine. But I do have to ask these questions, I’m afraid,’ says Chilton. He genuinely sounds sorry. ‘So, if you wouldn’t mind answering …’
‘Our children. We argued about our children.’ I sound almost sulky as I say the words. I’m aware that this is not winning the DCI over to my side. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just really tired,’ I say, trying to recover lost ground.
‘I’m sure you are. I have a few more questions and then I’ll leave you in peace,’ says Chilton. ‘When Tris Aldridge turned up at the croft, what made you run away from him and Zoe Coleman?’
‘When I returned to the croft to get help for Andrea, Tris was there, with Zoe. It was a very strange atmosphere. Nothing felt natural. I wanted to go back to help Andrea and I tried to get Zoe to come with me, but she couldn’t. Tris didn’t say anything, but he had his hand on her shoulder, stopping her from getting up. She mouthed the words get help and run at me.’
‘And that’s when you ran away?’
‘I went in the garden to get some climbing rope and Tris followed me out,’ I explain. ‘I’d grabbed a walkie-talkie from the kitchen on my way out and tried to contact the park ranger – or at least, what I thought was the park ranger. Turned out it was Tris all along.’
‘Mr Aldridge tells me that it was a joke. Something his wife had set up.’
I shrug. ‘I don’t know. It could have been, but by this time I was scared, I …’ My voice trails away. I feel ashamed for leaving Zoe behind, even though I know she wouldn’t have been able to run as fast as I could.
‘So it was then you ran away?’ prompts Chilton.
I compose myself and reply. ‘Yes. Up to the forest. I knew I’d be able to out-run Tris.’
‘I see.’ I’m not sure what he sees, but he carries on before I can say anything else. ‘Did you know Tris Aldridge had arranged with his wife to come up to the croft that day?’
I shake my head. ‘She never said anything to me. I thought it was supposed to be only the four of us, but Joanne did like surprises.’
‘Why do you think she asked Tris to come up?’
My shrug relays my inability to answer the question. Chilton cups his hands together and rests his elbows on his knees. ‘Mr Aldridge says his wife was nervous about the weekend. Especially since you and she had fallen out recently.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, he would say that, wouldn’t he?’ I catch myself again. ‘Joanne and I were fine.’
‘You hadn’t fallen out?’
‘No. Not recently. We had a disagreement a while ago, but that was all sorted out.’
‘Would this have been the disagreement concerning her daughter and your late husband?’
My mouth drops open in true goldfish style. Tris must have told him; how else would Chilton know? ‘That was all a misunderstanding. Their daughter had a crush on my husband, who was a tutor at the college where she was studying. Nothing happened between them. And the Aldridges and us, we were fine afterwards.’
‘Let me get this straight. You had a history with Joanne Aldridge since this business with her daughter, you had an argument with Joanne this weekend, you were the last person to see her alive. You also had an argument with Andrea Jarvis, again, about children. You also had an argument with Tris Aldridge. There seems to be a common denominator here. Do you always argue with your friends?’
‘No! You’re making it sound worse than it is.’
We eye each other in an unspoken stand-off. I don’t like the way this interview is going or the angle the DCI is approaching it from. ‘I swear to you, I never did anything to harm Joanne. She was alive when I left her.’
‘OK, let’s move on to what happened on the river. You and your son decided to take the kayaks. Why was that?’
Again, I’m thrown by the change in direction. I can’t help thinking this is a ploy to catch me out. I force myself to concentrate, despite the headache that is brewing. ‘I was worried Tris might catch us if we took the road on foot, and we didn’t have any other means of transport. No phones. Nothing.’ I dip my head and smooth my hands across the blanket draped over my knees, trying to dry my sweaty palms.
‘You genuinely thought Tris Aldridge posed a threat to you?’
‘Yes. Like I said, Zoe told me to run. I was scared of him. I was frightened about what he’d do to Alfie. He had already tried to … tried to get me. I think he was going to hang me and make it look like suicide.’ The last few words are practically a whisper. After everything that has happened since then, I’ve hardly had time to process what Tris had wanted to do to me. Since then my main aim has been staying alive and rescuing Alfie.
I feel a sudden weight of reality settle on me. Tris Aldridge had wanted not only his wife dead, but me too, so he could pin her murder on me and pass off my suicide as an act of remorse. I swallow hard and blink away the tears.
‘Take your time,’ urges Chilton. ‘When you’re ready, tell me what happened once you and Alfie were in the kayak. Were you in one kayak or two?’
‘We were in one, but we took the other one with us so that Tris couldn’t use it. We were going to cast it adrift further down the river.’
The memory of the gushing waters, the noise of the current and the coolness of the wind returns. I close my eyes for a moment. I don’t want to be transported back there. I need to keep a distance. I can describe it but I can’t relive it. ‘Sorry, this is so difficult … OK, it was all going fine until we rounded a bend in the river. There were rapids. The current was picking up speed, churning up as it hit the rocks and boulders. We couldn’t get out of the current and were being swept along.’ I pause and count to myself while I rein in my emotions. One … two … three … breathe. I can do this. I must.
‘Were you in the front or the back of the kayak?’ asks Chilton, his voice soft but firm. A voice that can’t be ignored.
‘I was in the front. Alfie in the back. He’s stronger than me.’ My stomach gives a roll and I think my breakfast is going to make a return journey. Once again, I call on the techniques I have learned to control the anxiety that is building up inside me. ‘We had no choice but to sit tight and hope for the best. I don’t know what happened next. I remember the noise. I could hear Alfie shouting but I didn’t know what he was saying. Then suddenly there was a drop. It was like being on one of those log flumes at the amusement parks. We were airborne for a second, before dropping back into the water. We must have hit a rock because suddenly, I was thrown out of the boat and went under.’
‘Did you have a life jacket on?’
‘No. Those were stored in the croft. We didn’t have time to get them.’
‘Were you knocked unconscious at any stage?’
‘I don’t know. It’s all a blur. I remember feeling I was being pulled down by the current and carried along underwater. I thought my lungs were going to burst. I was buffeted against rocks. I totally lost my bearings. And then, somehow, I was propelled to the surface. I looked round for Alfie but I couldn’t see him. It was all I could do to stay afloat as I was swept along by the current …’ I pause. My chest feels tight. I want to cry. I want to let out all the emotion, all the pain, both physical and mental. It is so hard to keep it under control. I fumble for another tissue, but the box slides on the Formica top. Chilton takes hold of the box and tugs at the contents. He hands me a tissue.
‘Take your time. You’re doing great.’
I wipe my face and nose several times before I feel able to continue. ‘Then I saw Alfie, face down. The water was pushing him towards me. I managed to grab on to a rock to stop myself from being carried further along and as he went by I caught his sleeve. I nearly lost him, but somehow I managed to drag him out of the current.’
Again, more memories flood my mind. Snapshots. None of them joining together to make one complete narrative, but fragments jumbled up, all in the wrong order.
‘How did you manage that with a bad wrist?’ says Chilton.
His words jolt me from my thoughts. I look at him blankly. How did I do that? I shrug. ‘I have no idea. I can’t remember feeling any pain. I suppose the mothering instinct in me, the one that puts their child’s life above everything else, must have taken over. All I remember is dragging him backwards through the water and on to the riverbank.’
‘It was a shallow bank on that side. You were very lucky.’
Lucky? Lucky to be alive? I suppose I am, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I am lucky in any other respect. I now have to live with what happened. That’s not lucky.
‘Have the doctors spoken to you about Alfie?’
I turn my gaze away and look at the treetops through the window. My heart is somewhere near the floor, the weight of the unhappiness within almost too great an encumbrance to bear. ‘They have,’ I manage to reply.
‘He took a big blow to the head,’ says Chilton. ‘On one of those rocks in the rapids, no doubt. Did you see it happen?’
I move my gaze slowly across the window, turning my head until finally I am facing the DCI. ‘There were rocks everywhere. He could have hit his head on any one of them. Everything happened so quickly …’ My voice tails off as the tears make an unexpected comeback. The tissue in my hand is soft and wet, I close my fingers around it, so tightly that at first I don’t register the pain. My nails are digging into the palm of my hand, but it’s not until I feel the warm liquid of blood on my skin that I look down and see what I’ve done to myself.
I let out a cry of alarm, throwing the tissue away from me. It brushes across my knees and falls silently to the floor. A bright red crumpled ball of blood.
‘Hey, hey, Carys. Are you OK?’
I flinch as something touches my arm. I look up and realise it’s the detective. He is leaning over me, his hand resting gently on my arm. I look down at the tissue. This time I see no blood, only a white crumpled piece of tissue.
‘I … I thought …’ I look again at Chilton, then the tissue. I inspect my hand. No blood anywhere. ‘Sorry, I’m not feeling good.’
‘I know this is difficult, Carys, but I need to establish a chain of events.’ He gives me a sympathetic smile. When he speaks, his voice is soft and full of compassion. ‘If there’s something that you remember, don’t be scared to tell me. In my experience, people in extreme situations do extreme things. Things they wouldn’t ever contemplate under normal circumstances. It’s frightening, I know, but if you can remember anything more, it would help me immensely.’
This time I look Detective Chief Inspector Matt Chilton straight in the eye. ‘Sorry. I don’t remember anything else.’